Rev. Prof. Matthew J. M. Coomber
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mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Rev. Prof. Matthew J. M. Coomber
@mjmcoomber.bsky.social
3K followers 910 following 1.7K posts
Professor/Episcopal priest studying anti-imperial resistance in the ancient world and practicing anti-fascist resistance in the modern | 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ ally | https://www.amazon.com/author/coomber | he/him | posts mine

Described as “dope teacher” in student eval
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mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Consumer capitalism…
November 25, 2025 at 8:17 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Capped off SBL/AAR with a private tour of Old North Church (of Paul Revere fame) by the vicar: my old seminary friend, the Rev. Dr. Matthew Cadwell
Photo of me in my phone in the sanctuary Who does the church from the above showing the stalls people would rent for pews? Preaching action shot from the raised pulpit View of the front of the church from the back
November 25, 2025 at 4:34 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Grateful to Wipf&Stock for featuring my latest edited book with a poster at SBL/AAR
Picture of me standing in front of a poster of my edited volume economics and empire of the Roman in the world at the SBL/AAR book stalls
November 23, 2025 at 5:27 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
After 6hrs in Chicago due to multiple delays, I’m headed to Boston! And with Chris Hoklotubbe, to boot!
Photo of me FINALLY on plane (and happy for it)
November 21, 2025 at 11:41 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
#RoadtripGoals
Road map entitled “Midwest Indie bookstore roadmap” Midwest Indie bookstore roadmap, showing various locations of the Midwest within independent bookstores
November 20, 2025 at 3:15 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
My AAR/SBL conference anxiety

If you catch me glancing at your name tag, it’s never reflective of my view of your worth. I’m just really, really bad at names
Picture of three dragon heads. Above it states ADHD. First dragon labeled fast thinking, secondary labeled, hyper focus, third dragon with googly eyes and tongue sticking out is labeled memorizing names.
November 20, 2025 at 1:44 AM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Remembering Buenaventura Durruti, Spanish anarchist, killed on this day, Nov. 20, 1936, while defending Madrid.
Photo of Buenaventura Durruti with a quote, “fascism is not to be debated, it is to be destroyed!”
November 20, 2025 at 1:36 AM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Be good to yourself (and others), out there 💛

(prints by my amazing colleague in our art dept., Joseph Lappie)
A collection of different colored and patterned art prints with the words and big bold, black font “love, you are loved”
November 20, 2025 at 12:33 AM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
New profile picture, but it's still me
November 17, 2025 at 10:16 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Check out #AAR/SBL Poverty in the Biblical World section next weekend

If you have an interest in biblical studies & economic justice, ancient and/or modern, consider presenting next year
AAR/SBL 2025 Annual Meeting Boston, MA Poverty in the Biblical World Saturday, Nov 22 04:00pm - 06:30pm Hynes-CC: 109 (First Level) The Bible, Poverty, and the Minoritized Peoples (with Minoritized Criticism and Biblical Interpretation Unit) Jaeun Koo, Presider • Kenna Curry & Haley Simental: “Prophetic Voices in Criminal Justice: How the Prophetic Genre Impacts Young Adults Transitioning Out of Penitentiaries” • Ron Clark: “The Son of Man Has No Place to Lay His Head—Just Like You: Reading Biblical Texts with Houseless Village Residents in Portland” • Raymond Morehouse: “Interpreting ‘Homelessness’ Prophetically: Disrupting the Drama of Contemporary Nomenclature” • Matthew J.M. Coomber: “Weights, Scales, & Luigi Mangione: Reading Micah 6:9–12 & Confronting Ableism in Late-Stage Capitalism” • Daiki Rakuman: “‘Are ‘Disabled’ and ‘Able-Bodied’ People Equal? Paul’s Letter and Japan’s Employment System for People with Disabilities” • Caleb Wachsmuth: “Patronizing the Poor: The Other’s Pronouncement, Pretentiousness, and Passivity in the Book of Job’s Poetry” Sunday, Nov 23 09:00am - 11:30am Sheraton: Commonwealth (Third Floor) Engaging the Legacies of Gustavo Gutiérrez in Biblical Interpretation (with Latino/a/e and Latin American Biblical Interpretation) Gilberto A. Ruiz, Presider • Klaus Peter Adam: “God of the Poor, God of Vindication: Lectura Caribeña de Salmos” • Jeffrey Bamaca: “Reading the Body of Jesus in Mark 5:25–34 through Gutiérrez’s God of Life” • Miluska Silencio & Lizanne Espina: “Church’s Call of Solidarity with Migrant Women Contending Injustices of the U.S. Immigration System” • Jon-Paul Lapeña: “Testimonies of Need: Healing Narratives and the Search for Health Care in Gospel Accounts and Early Latine Pentecostalism” • Pablo Andiñach, Respondent • M.T. Davila, Respondent Join us in Boston for powerful discussions on poverty, justice, and biblical interpretation. #AARSBL2025 #PovertyInTheBiblicalWorld
November 17, 2025 at 7:14 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Come see my #AAR/SBL paper on prophetic texts that can call out this shenanigans

This headline will be included
Conference listing for Matthew J.M. Coomber: Weights, Scales, and Luigi Mangione: Reading Micah 6:9-12 and Confronting Ableism in Late-Stage Capitalism. November 22, 2025 at 5 PM.
November 16, 2025 at 10:37 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Preaching on the hope of a disrupting God, this morning.

If only I could find a relevant topic to relate Isaiah 65 to... like threats of withholding food from people 🤔
Quote from Isaiah 65. "They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat"
November 16, 2025 at 1:16 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Happy birthday and God rest, Dorothy Day 🩷
Art of Dorothy Day with Halo welcoming a family of color with halos, likely the holy family, into a house of hospitality
November 8, 2025 at 8:31 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Finished a draft of "Weights, Scales, and Luigi Mangione: Reading Micah 6:9–12 and Confronting Ableism in Late-Stage Capitalism."

If attending #AARSBL, I'd love to see you there!
Saturday, November 22, 5:00 PM - 5:20 PM at 109 (Plaza Level) Hynes Convention Center Proposal Abstract: While much outrage was sparked by Luigi Mangione’s very public killing of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson, not all of the ire was directed toward the shooter: some celebrated Mr. Mangione as a folk hero. While a security video made the violence against Mr. Thompson clear for all to see, a hidden type of violence was thrust into the public discourse at the intersection of medicine and capitalism: the deaths and diminished-quality-of-life that result from deceptive business practices in the United States’ profit-driven healthcare system(s). While the author condemns Mr. Thompson’s murder, the Hebrew prophetic corpus contains a number of texts (e.g., Isaiah 59:1–8; Jeremiah 22:1–3, 15–17; Micah 3:1–4; Amos 3:10–11; Zephaniah 1:7–9) that resonate with those who saw the blood of our society’s most vulnerable on the executive’s hands. A particularly poignant passage in this regard is Micah 6:9–12, which depicts the conduct of fraudulent merchants as violence (hamas). With a focus on the plight of disabled and elderly persons who are financially and physically burdened by denied claims or refused coverage for physician-prescribed medicines and procedures, this paper will explore how prophetic voices might offer responses to violent injustices that are suffered within our capitalist health-care system. Session Description: This session explores the intersection of poverty, minoritization, and biblical interpretation in this present moment of apocalypse—apocalypse as the revealing of capitalist and colonialist forces at work and/or apocalypse as disaster in current contexts of climate catastrophe, war, political precarity, state-sanctioned violence, and mass migration. We invite scholars to examine critically how biblical texts have been meaningful for these minoritized peoples (via the nexus of gender, race, indigeneity, debility/disability, etc.) amidst their struggle with poverty and/or how biblical texts can themselves become sites of struggle. Sat, November 22, 4:00 PM - 6:30 PM, 109 (Plaza Level) Hynes Convention Center Other papers include: 4:00 PM 4:20 PM Prophetic Voices in Criminal Justice: How the Prophetic Genre Impacts Young Adults Transitioning Out of Penitentiaries Kenna Curry, Southern Methodist University; Haley Simental, Lone Star Justice Alliance 4:20 PM 4:40 PM The Son of Man Has No Place to Lay His Head—Just Like You: Reading Biblical Texts among Houseless Village Residents in Portland Ron Clark, George Fox University 4:40 PM 5:00 PM Interpreting “Homelessness” Prophetically: Disrupting the Drama of Contemporary Nomenclature Raymond Morehouse, Inherit the Earth Outreach 5:00 PM 5:20 PM Weights, Scales, and Luigi Mangione: Reading Micah 6:9–12 and Confronting Ableism in Late-Stage Capitalism Matthew J.M. Coomber, St. Ambrose University 5:20 PM 5:40 PM Are "Disabled" and "Able-Bodied" People Equal? Paul's Letter and Japan's Employment System for People with Disabilities Daiki Rakuman, Graduate School Division of Theology Doctoral Course in Theology, Seinan Gakuin University 5:40 PM 6:00 PM Patronizing the Poor: The Other's Pronouncement, Pretentiousness, and Passivity in the Book of Job's Poetry Caleb Keokolo Wachsmuth, Boston College 6:00 PM 6:30 PM
November 7, 2025 at 4:51 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
A bit of beauty, and theological wisdom, for your timeline
Kelly Latimore Icons of Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez Quote: "The freedom to which we are called presupposes going out of oneself, the breaking down of our selfishness and of all the structures that support our selfishness; the foundation of this freedom is openness to others. The fullness of liberation - a free gift from Christ- is communion with God and other human beings." ~Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez
November 3, 2025 at 11:58 AM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Good one
Single frame cartoon with three figures standing. Elderly man with a cane who is supposed to represent God on the left, Jesus with a crown of thorns covering his mouth and giggling in the middle, and a bedsheet ghost on the right with his arms crossed and scowling. God is saying, “So what are you going as this Halloween?”
October 31, 2025 at 2:36 AM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Read this a few years ago

It’s frightfully timely
Cover of Gesine Gerhard’s NAZI HUNGER POLITICS: A History of Food in the Third Reich. Has an old propaganda poste did a mother happily providing food for children
October 30, 2025 at 2:33 AM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
The day started off beautifully
View of an episcopal church from the altar
October 27, 2025 at 2:06 AM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Bit of beauty for your timeline
(St. Hildegard of Bingen receiving a vision)
An illumination from the Liber Scivias. It depicts St. Hildegard of Bingen receiving and recording a divine vision onto a wax tablet. A bearded man (a monk, perhaps) watches. The vision is represented by orange/red flame-like strands coming down onto her head from above.
October 22, 2025 at 3:24 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Can’t wait for my copy of @maiakotro.bsky.social’s new book to arrive

dukeupress.edu/after-transf...
Cover and blurb on Dr. Maia Kotrosits’ new book, After Transformation: A Lyrical History of Christian Late Antiquity. In After Transformation, Maia Kotrosits offers a lyrical history of Christian late antiquity as it lives on in and with the present. Recasting the monumental changes that occurred between the second and fourth centuries, when Rome transitioned from pagan to Christian worship, Kotrosits presents a condensed and evocative meditation on the profound effects of Christian imperialism across time and geography. She employs a collection of forms ranging from micro-essay and vignette to poem and fragment to capture human struggles with time and change, showing how the mundane and intimate details of our lives can themselves be conduits of historical knowing. Arguing for lyricism as a method, Kotrosits reclaims vulnerability, urgency, and storytelling in historical work to model new ways of writing the past and experiencing ourselves more fully in time. Above all, After Transformation is about the ironies of the ways that history is written against the reality of the ways that history is lived.
October 21, 2025 at 4:23 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Could there be a better metaphor for his presidency?
Back hoe demolishing a section of the White House
October 20, 2025 at 11:47 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Beautiful day in Davenport, Iowa for today’s #NoKings demonstration (lots of bubbles!). Huge turnout marching around Vander Veer Park
Making bubbles at NoKings demo Folks marching around Vander Veer Park in Davenport, Iowa
October 18, 2025 at 7:09 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
I might have purchased 80 bubble wands to hand out at tomorrow's demonstration
No Kings logo, which has a yellow crown with a red x on it over a blue background
October 17, 2025 at 4:45 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
New book on my shelf
Looking like a good one!
October 14, 2025 at 3:45 PM
mjmcoomber.bsky.social
Interesting NYT article on purity culture and its symbolisms

If looking for an academic chapter on purity culture & Bible, I've used Dr. Jessica Keady's "Rape Culture Discourse and Female Impurity: Genesis 34 as a Case Study" with my students since it came out
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/s...
Title page of Jessica M. Keady's chapter, "Rape culture discourse and female impurity: genesis 34 as a case study." Title page of the edited volume, Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Biblical Perspectives, by C. Blyth, E. Colgan, K. Edwards, eds. Publishing house: Palgrave Macmillan
October 14, 2025 at 3:35 PM